The Linux Acronym List

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

A

AMD Advanced Micro Devices

API application programming interface

ARP address resolution protocol

ARPANET Advanced Research Projects Agency Network

AS autonomous system

ASCII American Standard Code for Information Interchange

AT&T American Telephone and Telegraph Company

ATA advanced technology attachment

ATM asynchronous transfer mode

B

B byte

BELUG Bellevue Linux Users Group

BGP border gateway protocol

BIOS basic input output system

BKL big kernel lock

BNC Bayonet Neill-Concelman

BSA Business Software Alliance

BSD Berkeley Software Distribution (originally Berkeley Source Distribution)

C

CCITT Comit Consultatif International Tlphonique et Tlgraphique

cd change directory

CD compact disc

CDROM compact disc read-only memory

CJKV Chinese Japanese Korean Vietnamese

CLDR common locale data repository

CLI command line interface

CPU central processing unit

CRC cyclic redundancy check

CRT cathode ray tube

CSMA/CD carrier sense multiple access/collision detection

CSS cascading style sheets

CUPS common UNIX printing system

CVS concurrent versions system

D

daemon disk and execution monitor*

DEC Digital Equipment Corporation

DHCP dynamic host configuration protocol

DLC data link control

DLL dynamic link library

DMCA Digital Millennium Copyright Act

DNS domain name service

DOS disk operating system

DRAM dynamic random access memory

DVD digital versatile disc (originally digital video disc)

E

EDGE enhanced data GSM environment

EEPROM electrically erasable read-only memory

EFF Electronic Frontier Foundation

EGP exterior gateway protocol

EULA end user license agreement

F

FAQ frequently asked questions

FDD floppy disk drive

FDDI fiber distributed data interface

FOSS free open source software

FQDN fully qualified domain name

FS filesystem

FSF Free Software Foundation

FTP file transfer protocol

G

Gb gigabit

GB gigabyte

GbE gigabit Ethernet

GCC GNU Compiler Collection (originally GNU C Compiler)

GFDL GNU Free Documentation License

GID group identification

GIF graphics interchange format

GIGO garbage in garbage out

GIMP GNU Image Manipulation Program

GNOME GNU Network Object Model Environment

GOCC Government Open Code Collaborative

GNU GNU's Not UNIX

GPG GNU Privacy Guard

GPRS general packet radio service

GRUB grand unified bootloader

GUI graphical user interface

H

HDD hard disk drive

HDLC high level data link control

HFS hierarchical file system

HP Hewlett-Packard

HTML hypertext markup language

HTTP hypertext transfer protocol

I

IANA Internet Assigned Numbers Authority

IBM International Business Machines

IC integrated circuit

ICANN Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers

ICMP Internet control message protocol

IDE integrated drive electronics

IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers

IETF Internet Engineering Task Force

IGP interior gateway protocol

IGRP interior gateway routing protocol

IMAP Internet message access protocol

I/O input/output

IP Internet protocol

IPC inter-process communication

IPX internetwork packet exchange

IRC Internet relay chat

ISO International Organization for Standardization

ISP Internet service provider

IT information technology

IXP Internet exchange points

J

JPEG Joint Photographic Experts Group

JVM Java virtual machine

K

Kb kilobit

KB kilobyte

KCP kernel control path

KDE K Desktop Environment

L

LAMP Linux Apache MySQL and PHP

LAN local area network

LANANA Linux Assigned Names and Numbers Authority

LAP link access procedure

LCD liquid crystal display

LDAP lightweight directory access protocol

LED light emitting diode

LFS Linux From Scratch

LGPL GNU Lesser General Public License

LIDS Linux intrusion detection system

LILO Linux loader

LINFO The Linux Information Project

LFS log-structured file system

LSB Linux Mark Institute

LSB Linux Standards Base

LSI large scale integrated circuit

LUG Linux users group

LVM logical volume management

LZW Lempel-Ziv-Welch

M

MAC media access control

Mb megabit

MB megabyte

MBR master boot record

MD5 message digest 5

MDI medium dependent interface

MIT Massachussets Institute of Technology

MMU memory management unit

MS Microsoft

MS-DOS Microsoft disk operating system

MTU maximum transmission unit

N

NFS network file system

NIC network interface card

NILFS new implementation log-structured file system

NIS network information system

NNTP network news transfer protocol

NTP network time protocol

O

ODF open document format

OS operating system

OSDL Open Source Development Labs

OSI open systems interconnection

OSPF open shortest path first

P

PAM pluggable authentication modules

PCMCIA Personal Computer Memory Card International Association

PDA personal digital assistant

PDF portable document format

PGP pretty good privacy

PHP PHP hypertext preprocessor (originally personal home page)

PID process identification number

ping packet Internet groper (orginally not an acronym)

PKI public key cryptography

PKI public key infrastructure

PNG portable network graphics

PnP plug-and-play

POP post office protocol

POSIX portable operating system interface

POTS plain old telephone service

PPP point-to-point protocol

PS postscript

PSTN public switched telephone network

pwd print working directory

R

RAID redundant arrays of independent disks

RAM random access memory

RARP reverse address resolution protocol

RDBMS relational database management system

RFID radio frequency identification

RHCE Red Hat Certified Engineer

RIP routing information protocol

RJ registered jack

RMON remote monitoring

RMS Richard M. Stallman

ROM read-only memory

RPC remote procedure call

RPM Red Hat package manager

RSS really simple syndication

RTOS real time operating system

RTP real-time transport protocol

S

SAN storage area network

SANE scanner access now easy

SCO Santa Cruz Operation

SCSI small computer standard interface

SDLC synchronous data link control

SDRAM synchronous dynamic random access memory

SGID set group ID

SGML standard generalized markup language

SMB server message block

SNMP simple network management protocol

SMTP simple mail transfer protocol

SOAP simple object access protocol

SPAM superfluous pieces of additional mail*

SRAM static random access memory

SRI Stanford Research Institute

SSH secure shell

SSL secure sockets layer

su substitute user

SUID set user ID

SVID System V interface definition

T

TAR tape archive

TB terabyte

TCP transmission control protocol

TCP/IP transmission control protocol/Internet protocol

Tcl tool command language

TCO total cost of ownership

TCO transmission control protocol

TLB translation lookaside buffer

TLD top level domain

TRON The Real Time Operating System

TSL transport layer security

TTL time-to-live

TTL transistor-transistor logic

TTY teletype terminal

U

UCB University of California at Berkeley

UCITA Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act

UCLA University of California at Los Angeles

UCS universal character set

UDP user datagram protocol

UID user identification

URI uniform resource identifier

URL uniform resource locator

USB universal serial bus

UTF UCS transformation format

UTMS universal mobile telecommunications system

UUCP UNIX-to-UNIX copy

V

VFAT virtual file allocation table

VGA video graphics array

VLSI very large scale integrated circuit

vm virtual memory

VPN virtual private network

W

W3C World Wide Web Consortium

WAN wide area network

WAP wireless access point

WAP wireless application protocol

WEP wired equivalent privacy

WINE WINE is not an emulator

WLAN wireless local area network

WWW World Wide Web

WXGA wide extended graphics array

X

X X Window System

XML extensible markup language